The Astral Level (Fourth Layer)

"The astral body is amorphous and is composed of clouds of color more beautiful
than those of the emotional body. The astral
body tends to have the same set of colors, but they are usually infused
with the rose light of love. It extends out about one half to one foot
(15 to 30 cm) from the body. The chakra
are the same octave of colors as the rainbow of the emotional body, but
each is infused with the rose light of love. The heart
chakra of a loving person is full of rose light on the astral level.

When people fall in love, beautiful arcs of rose light can be seen between
their hearts, and a beautiful rose color is added to the normal golden
pulsations I observe in the pituitary gland. When people form relationships
with each other, they grow cords out of the chakras that connect them.
These cords exist on many levels of the auric field in addition to the
astral. The longer and deeper the relationship, the more cords and the stronger they are.
When relationships end, those cords are torn, sometimes causing a great
deal of pain. The period of "getting over" a relationship is usually a
period of disconnecting those cords on the lower levels of the field and
rerooting them within the self.

A great deal of interaction takes place between people on the astral
level. Great blobs of color of various forms whisk across the room between
people. Some of it is pleasant and some not so pleasant. You can feel the
difference. You may feel uneasy about someone across the room who is apparently
not even aware of your presence; however on another level a lot is happening.
I have seen people standing next to each other in a group pretending not
to notice each other, when on the energy level there is a whole communication
taking place with lots of energy forms moving between them. You have no
doubt experienced this yourself, especially between men and women. It is
not just body language; there is an actual energetic phenomenon that can
be perceived.. For example, when a man or woman fantasize about making
love with someone, say in a bar or at a party, there is an actual testing
in the energy fields to see if the fields are synchronous and if the people
are compatible."

Steiner sees this as a spiritual faculty, by which man can attune to the Christ Consciousness. According to Steiner this is the evolutionary goal of the present "culture epoch". This faculty also makes up the higher part of the "ego" or Self-Consciousness.

Tifaret is considered intermediate between the lower and higher Sefirot. It is in the center of the Tree and hence is identified with the the ego-consciousness, or in Hermetic Kabbalah, the vision of the Holy Guardian Angel (i.e. the first glimpse of the Higher Self). Yesod is associated in Hermetic Kabbalah with the Astral Plane, the first movement beyond the physical/mundane realities, which is also completely appropriate. He we see how difficult it is to make associations with hermetic systems of thought; they are so multi-faceted and at the same time ambiguous that almost anything can be equated with anything.

This is the macrocosmic equivelent of the Neural Mind, it seems that having reached the point of maximum individuation development now moves "backwards" (further out) on the macrocosmic scale; or perhaps there is a dual movement, both forwards and back.